The pronunciation lab
Twelve sound pairs, each one game: hear a word, tap which of two you heard. The fastest way to grow a sound the mother tongue doesn't have.
A minimal pair is two words one sound apart — ship and sheep. When a child can reliably HEAR the difference, saying it follows almost by itself; drilling the mouth before the ear is doing it backwards.
Each lab below names the first languages it trips hardest — Russian, Spanish, Arabic. Start with your class's traps.
ship or sheepɪ · iːThe short i and the long ee — the most famous pair in English teaching. Russian and Spanish each have a single i, so the two merge.Hard for Russian and Spanish speakersvet or wetv · wV bites the lip, W rounds the lips — Russian has only the first, so wet becomes vet.Hard for Russian speakersberry or veryb · vIn Spanish, b and v share one sound. English keeps them apart — lips for b, teeth for v.Hard for Spanish speakersfan or vanf · vF is a whisper; v is the same mouth with the voice switched on. Arabic has f but no v, so van turns into fan and very into fairy.Hard for Arabic speakersrock or lockr · lThe English r never touches the roof of the mouth; the l always does. A tongue-position pair.Hard for Russian, Spanish and Arabic speakersthink or sinkθ · sThe famous th: tongue between the teeth, air over the top. Russian and Latin American Spanish lack it, and many Arabic dialects say s or t.Hard for Russian, Spanish and Arabic speakersthree or treeθ · tWhen th is hard, children swap in t — and three trees become tree trees.Hard for Russian, Spanish and Arabic speakerschip or shiptʃ · ʃCh starts with a tiny t-stop; sh flows from the first instant. Spanish has ch but not sh, so ships become chips; most Arabic has sh but not ch, so chips become ships.Hard for Spanish and Arabic speakerscat or cutæ · ʌThe wide smiling a of cat against the short dark u of cut — two vowels most languages fold into one.Hard for Russian, Spanish and Arabic speakerspen or pine · ɪThe open e of pen against the short, relaxed i of pin. Arabic has only three short vowels (a, i, u), so e and i blur and pen sounds like pin.Hard for Arabic speakersjet or yetdʒ · jJ buzzes like a motor; y only glides. Many Spanish speakers say the y of yes almost like a j, so yet and jet sound the same.Hard for Spanish speakerspear or bearp · bP is a puff of air, b is not — English cares about the puff more than most languages do, and Arabic has no p at all.Hard for Russian, Spanish and Arabic speakers